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Government and Political Conspiracies

Throughout time, there have been countless government and political conspiracies that have kept us wondering. This forum is dedicated to that very topic. Got a conspiracy theory of your own? Post it, and try to back it up as best you can!

Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice have asked a federal court to indefinitely delay a lawsuit brought by watchdog group Judicial Watch. The lawsuit seeks the enforcement of open records requests relating to Operation Fast and Furious, as required by law.

Judicial Watch had filed, on June 22, 2012, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking all documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious and “specifically [a]ll records subject to the claim of executive privilege invoked by President Barack Obama on or about June 20, 2012.”

The administration has refused to comply with Judicial Watch’s FOIA request, and in mid-September the group filed a lawsuit challenging Holder’s denial. That lawsuit remains ongoing but within the past week President Barack Obama’s administration filed what’s called a “motion to stay” the suit. Such a motion is something that if granted would delay the lawsuit indefinitely.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that Holder’s and Obama’s desire to continually hide these Fast and Furious documents is “ironic” now that they’re so gung-ho on gun control. “It is beyond ironic that the Obama administration has initiated an anti-gun violence push as it seeking to keep secret key documents about its very own Fast and Furious gun walking scandal,” Fitton said in a statement. “Getting beyond the Obama administration’s smokescreen, this lawsuit is about a very simple principle: the public’s right to know the full truth about an egregious political scandal that led to the death of at least one American and countless others in Mexico. The American people are sick and tired of the Obama administration trying to rewrite FOIA law to protect this president and his appointees. Americans want answers about Fast and Furious killings and lies.”

The only justification Holder uses to ask the court to indefinitely delay Judicial Watch’s suit is that there’s another lawsuit ongoing for the same documents – one filed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Judicial Watch has filed a brief opposing the DOJ’s motion to stay.

As the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was voting Holder into contempt of Congress for his refusal to cooperate with congressional investigators by failing to turn over tens of thousands of pages of Fast and Furious documents, Obama asserted the executive privilege over them. The full House of Representatives soon after voted on a bipartisan basis to hold Holder in contempt.

There were two parts of the contempt resolution. Holder was, and still is, in both civil and criminal contempt of Congress. The criminal resolution was forwarded to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen–who works for Holder–for prosecution. Despite being technically required by law to bring forth criminal charges against Holder, under orders from Holder’s Department of Justice Machen chose to ignore the resolution.

The second part of the contempt resolution–civil contempt of Congress–allowed House Republicans to hire legal staff to challenge President Obama’s assertion of the executive privilege. That lawsuit remains ongoing despite Holder’s and the DOJ’s attempt to dismiss it and settle it.

It’s unclear what’s in the documents Obama asserted privilege over, but the president’s use of the extraordinary power appears weak. There are two types of presidential executive privilege: the presidential communications privilege and the deliberative process privilege. Use of the presidential communications privilege would require that the president himself or his senior-most advisers were involved in the discussions.

Since the president and his cabinet-level officials continually claim they had no knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious until early 2011 when the information became public–and Holder claims he didn’t read the briefing documents he was sent that outlined the scandal and how guns were walking while the operation was ongoing–Obama says he’s using the less powerful deliberative process privilege.

The reason why Obama’s assertion of that deliberative process privilege over these documents is weak at best is because the Supreme Court has held that such a privilege assertion is invalidated by even the suspicion of government wrongdoing. Obama, Holder, the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and virtually everyone else involved in this scandal have admitted that government wrongdoing actually took place in Operation Fast and Furious.

In Fast and Furious, the ATF “walked” about 2,000 firearms into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. That means through straw purchasers they allowed sales to happen and didn’t stop the guns from being trafficked even though they had the legal authority to do so and were fully capable of doing so.

Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and hundreds of Mexican citizens–estimates put it around at least 300–were killed with these firearms.

A Mexican national claims to be the man who shot and killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, whose death is tied to the "Fast and Furious" gun-walking scandal.

Gustavo Cruz-Lozano, who says he killed Terry, turned himself in on Wednesday on charges related to a separate incident: threatening to kill Hidalgo County, Texas Sheriff Lupe Treviño.

But before he surrendered himself, Cruz-Lozano said in an exclusive interview with Univision News' daily news magazine show "Primer Impacto" that he murdered Terry during a firefight on Dec. 14, 2010, while the agent was on patrol near the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. Two AK-47 rifles found at the scene were linked to the botched Operation Fast and Furious, in which the U.S. government sought to track firearms sales to violent drug cartels. But it remains unclear whether those weapons were used to kill Terry.

Cruz-Lozano, 41, was not one of the several suspects arrested in the aftermath of Terry's slaying. But in an interview with Univision News, he insisted he is the one who pulled the trigger on Terry.

"We had a drug shipment and when they took us by surprise, people started surrounding them, and that's when we ambushed them," he told "Primer Impacto" correspondent Natalia Cruz. "When they started surrounding them and they had no time to react, I was the one, I was the one that killed him."

Until now, the identity of the trigger man in Terry's murder has been unknown. The Federal Bureau of Investigation requested to see Cruz-Lozano's interview with Univision News. Cruz-Lozano agreed to the interview, which aired on Thursday, on the condition that his face be covered.

One man has already pleaded guilty for participating in Terry's murder: Mexican national Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, the Associated Press reported in October 2012. Osorio-Arellanes faces life in prison.

When Univision News contacted the Terry family's attorney, Lincoln Combs, for a reaction to Cruz-Lozano's claims, he expressed skepticism about the possibility that Cruz-Lozano was involved in the killing since his name had not been part of the investigation thus far.

The attorney said that the alleged perpetrators of Terry's death had been previously identified by the authorities. Out of the five drug cartel members involved in the killing, two are being held in the United States (the Osorio brothers), one is in custody in Mexico (Jesus Leonel Sanchez Meza) and and two others, identified as Jesus Favela Astorga and Ivan Rosario Soto Barraza, are missing. The U.S. government has offered $25,000 for information that would lead to their capture.

Another man who purchased the two rifles found at the scene of Terry's death, Jaime Avila, Jr., was sentenced last month to nearly five years in federal prison.

The "Fast and Furious" scandal sent political shockwaves through the Obama administration. Critics called the operation irresponsible for allowing guns to enter into the hands of cartel members. Around 1,400 of the 2,000 guns purchased as part of the operation were lost and nearly 100 were used in crimes in Mexico, according to a Univision News investigation.

Dozens of Republican lawmakers called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, alleging that he should be held accountable for the operation, which was run out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Ultimately, the Department of Justice's inspector general issued a report that cleared Holder and placed blame on other ATF and DOJ officials.

Cruz-Lozano told Univision News that he was going to reveal his identity to FBI officials because he is tired of being a fugitive and that he hopes that by turning himself in, he could receive life in prison instead of the death penalty. He also claimed that he threatened Sheriff Treviño because he was investigating drug traffickers in the area.

"If it were in front of this man, not only would say that I am sorry but that I am willing to pay for all the crimes I committed," said Cruz-Lozano.

All these scandals running amok in the White House, and Obamao, or any of his people knew anything or were aware of anything wrong?

Theres a lot of stuff going on, wonder how much longer Obamao can keep a lid on it all. seems he's finally losing the Lib media. They didnt care when 4 Americans were killed in Benghazi, but they sure got loud since the whole AP scandal popped up. Could be Obamaos biggest mistake . Shouldnt have gone after the media, he would have been fine.

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